The appellant said the different verdicts against him were inconsistent.
Held: ‘The principle in every case is whether the inconsistency is such that it would not be safe to allow the verdict to stand. The fact that two verdicts are logically inconsistent does not however make the verdict complained of unsafe unless the only explanation of the inconsistency must or might be that the jury was confused or adopted the wrong approach’. ‘When an appellant seeks to persuade this Court as his ground of appeal that the jury has returned a repugnant or inconsistent verdict, the burden is plainly on him. He must satisfy the Court that the two verdict cannot stand together, meaning thereby that no reasonable jury who had applied their mind properly to the facts in the case could have arrived at the conclusion and once one assumes that they were an unreasonable jury, or that they could not have reasonably come to the conclusion, then the convictions cannot stand . . . the burden is on the Appellant to show that verdicts upon different counts are not merely inconsistent but are so inconsistent as to demand interference by an appellate court.’
Judges:
Lord Parker, Chief Justice
Citations:
(1968) 52 Cr App R, (1968) 2 QB 433
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Van Der Molen CACD 20-Feb-1997
The appellant had been acquitted of rape, but convicted of indecent assault.
Held: ‘It did not follow that because the jury must have disbelieved a witness or rejected his or her evidence with the result that it acquitted on one count, it was . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Criminal Practice
Updated: 29 April 2022; Ref: scu.185680